Kevin Staveley-O'Carroll
University of Connecticut, CT·Microbiology & Immunology
Immunotherapy drugs that release the brakes on immune cells have transformed cancer care. But for liver cancer, they help only about 14% of patients.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
- Topics
hepatocellular carcinoma
liver cancer
gut microbiota
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Dissect how Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron changes dendritic cells and macrophages through the KLF2 and TLR9 pathways to strengthen anti-HCC immunity, using a mouse liver cancer model with a trackable tumor antigen.
- Define the cellular mechanisms by which B.th-modulated dendritic cells and macrophages activate tumor-specific CD8+ T cells and improve the effect of anti-PD-1 therapy.
- Investigate how gut bacteria relate to treatment response and immune regulation in human hepatocellular cancer patients receiving anti-PD-1 antibodies.
More about the research
Bacteria living in the gut can shape how the immune system fights tumors. This project asks how specific gut bacteria boost the immune attack on hepatocellular cancer (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer, and whether they can make immunotherapy work better.
Why it matters
Most patients with hepatocellular cancer do not respond to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy. Showing how gut Bacteroides strengthen anti-tumor immunity could support therapies that combine treatments based on gut bacteria with immunotherapy. This could raise response rates for liver cancer patients. It may also help identify which patients' gut bacteria predict a better response.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Masanobu Komatsu
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether the signaling protein R-Ras in blood vessel cells drives the formation of high endothelial venules in tumors, using mice that lack or overproduce endothelial R-Ras in mammary tumor and melanoma models.
Sana D Karam
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how immune checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-L1 drugs act on PD-1-expressing regulatory T cells and their STAT3 signaling during radiation therapy, using genetically engineered mice and samples from HNSCC clinical trials.
Robert Winchester
Columbia University, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether immune checkpoint inhibitors convert PD-1+ tissue-resident memory (TRM) T cells in osteoarthritic joints into inflammatory effector T cells, using a longitudinal patient study that traces T-cell receptor (TCR) clonotypes as lineage barcodes.
The school
University of Connecticut: 31 labs on PI Pages, $434M a year on research, 360 research doctorates a year.
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